The markets are humming along, housing is stabilizing, and inflation is under control. So financial advisors and their clients can, at long last, relax -- right? Nope, says Kimberlee Orth, an Ameriprise Financial advisor in Wilmington, Del. "This ride is not over yet," she says with a laugh. "Do not get comfortable!"

With an anemic economy, a dysfunctional government, and a bloated bond market, there is indeed plenty of reason for anxiety. That helps explain why clients are increasingly turning to the best advisors. The average assets for America's top 1,000 advisors stand at $2.1 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 2012 and $1.6 billion in 2011, according to an annual Barron's survey. In this special report, we put a spotlight on that group. You'll find tables listing the best advisors in each state and profiles of the No. 1s in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, including their latest recommendations.

The biggest challenge the advisors have been facing is finding decent yield for income-starved clients. Over the past couple of years, bonds and dividend stocks have fit the bill nicely. But bond returns are now paltry, and any rise in interest rates will make them even less attractive. A retiree with a $100,000 portfolio of safe, short-term bonds used to be able to count on $4,000 or $5,000 of yearly income. Today that same portfolio might earn just a few hundred dollars, says Drew Zager, an advisor with Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management in Los Angeles.

At the same time, a stampede into dividend stocks has made yield harder to find in that arena. "I do believe the market for high-dividend-paying stocks has been picked over," says Jerry Klein, an advisor with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in Los Angeles. Klein adds that dividend plays are still out there, but they're in the form of companies with high free cash flow and the ability to increase dividends -- think Qualcomm or Apple.

The hunt for yield has advisors on the lookout for nonpublic investments. For Klein, that includes everything from private master limited partnerships to mezzanine debt to senior-loan funds. In Omaha, Neb., Ron Carson's team has raised $50 million from clients for an operation that will buy homes and rent them.

ONE CLEAR THEME AMONG THE ADVISORS for 2013, not surprisingly, is an increasing commitment to stocks. Barry Barlow, an advisor with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in Louisville, Ky., had a stock weighting in his typical client's portfolio of 55% last year. By the middle of this year, he expects that to move to 65%.

Some of the shift to equities is rooted in pure enthusiasm for the stock market's prospects. Jennifer Kelley, an advisor with Wells Fargo Advisors in Burlington, Vt., predicts that "the next 10 years will be amazing" for the asset class.

But others are not so much turning to stocks as they are turning away from bonds. Rod Westmoreland, an advisor with Merrill Lynch Wealth Management in Atlanta, is one of many who see major interest-rate risk in bonds. Should interest rates rise significantly, bonds' value will drop accordingly.

"Right now most people are selling equities to buy bonds, and we think that's the wrong trade," says Westmoreland, who has slashed bond holdings and added more weight to global stocks and private equity.

Other advisors argue that the new tax environment has diminished the attractiveness of taxable fixed-income and forced investors to take on more risk. "With things like taxable corporates and junk, you're paying a lot more in taxes than last year," says Zager, who notes that residents of states like New York and California can find their yields halved by taxes. "We think this is going to push more investors to munis, preferred stocks, and common stocks."

INDEED, RECENT DATA SHOW what may be the beginnings of a shift away from bonds and toward stocks. Investor money poured almost uninterrupted from stock funds from May 2011 until early this year, according to data from the Investment Company Institute, the mutual-fund industry trade group.

But net inflows into stock funds have been positive over the most recent four weeks, to the tune of $29.5 billion. Those flows surpassed the $28.1 billion that flowed into bond funds over the same period, according to ICIa striking turnabout from the prior trend.

From now on, "we'll see [flows] at least being more balanced between equity and bond funds," predicts Zager.

For the past few years, many advisors have had a tough time getting balky clients out of cash and into the market. Now they're starting to face the opposite challenge of keeping clients from getting in over their heads. "I am starting to get comments from clients along the lines of, 'Do you think we should ramp up our stock exposure in my portfolio?' " says Orth.

With the Dow near a record high, advisors are finding it hard to manage clients' expectations for stock returns. Many investors expect the 10% returns of another era, but 7% or 8% is more realistic right now, says Klein.

To be sure, advisors aren't abandoning fixed income. But they are generally keeping maturities short as a hedge against interest-rate risk. Many have been shifting to municipal bonds and to foreign bonds both for their attractive rates and as a hedge against a weakening dollar. Others have embraced floating-rate bank loans as a hedge against rising interest rates. Zager is currently enthusiastic about cushion bonds -- callable bonds that are less sensitive to changes in interest rates.

When it comes to picking stocks, meanwhile, many say they're feeling confident about large-cap growth stocks; the economy could be firming up for a long-term expansion, and large companies along with it. "It feels like this market is going to get some legs under it," says Orth. Such stocks are still attractively priced, say advisors like Troy Nelson, an Edward Jones advisor in Bismarck, N.D.

Others are upbeat about overseas blue-chip dividend stocks. In Europe, for instance, fears of political and economic disintegration haven't played out, but they have helped drive valuations to attractive levels, says Andrew Burish, a UBS advisor in Madison, Wis.

Though 2008 may be fading from view, the best advisors have used its lessons to improve their businesses. For Orth, the crash added impetus to a new commitment to client communications. Lately, her team has been calling clients to discuss topics like the fiscal cliff, the election, and tax-law changes.

"We've learned that clients want to hear from us proactively," she says.

OUR TOP 1,000 ARE CLEARLY an experienced group. The typical member has been in the industry for 26 years, with 19 years at their current firms. They're generally backed up by teams of about 10 people and boast client-retention rates of about 98% annually. They focus on wealthy families the average net worth is $24 million. While the average account size of the group is $12 million, some of the advisors, as you'll see in the profiles that follow, focus on far more modest sums.

The full ranking is presented state by state, with greater numbers of advisors shown for the bigger states. It's based on assets under management, revenue generated for the advisors' firms, and the quality of their practices. The ranking differs from our annual listing of America's top 100 advisors, which ranks advisors against their peers nationwide. That listing is due to be published on April 15.